When will Carlsbad's gray fortress be razed? A matter of time

New Jersey-based NRG Energy, owner of the Encina Power Fortress, is sending shock waves through the sensitive body politic of Carlsbad with its threat to house not one but two power stations on 95 acres on the yawning mouth of the Agua Hedionda Lagoon.

Is this a “bait and no switch”? Or is what we have here a tactical failure of both sides to communicate?

Last year, Steve Hoffman, the president of NRG’s west division, wrote an op-ed column in the Union-Tribune defending the replacement of the Eisenhower-era water-cooled Encina with a smaller air-cooled plant on a less conspicuous section of NRG’s property closer to Interstate 5.

“Going forward with the new plant,” Hoffman wrote, “is the necessary first step to ensure the start of the process to gain approval from the state power authorities for a shutdown that will eventually (sarcastic italics mine) lead to Encina’s removal and the possible development of the coastal property for nonindustrial purposes.”

If you hate Encina, Hoffman implied, you’ve got to love this sleek high-tech engine, an all-electric Ferrari, if you will.

When the new plant fires up, the medieval-looking concrete fortress with the 400-foot smokestack will be blasted into rubble and carted away, eventually making way for best-use commercial development in keeping with Carlsbad’s sales-tax-hungry dreams.

The headwind that NRG had to buck was Carlsbad’s desire to go for the gold of redevelopment and totally rid its coastline of unsightly power plants and high-power lines.

On the same day Hoffman’s op-ed appeared, then-Mayor Bud Lewis argued in a dueling commentary that coastal cities should no longer be forced to endure water-fueled “industrial monstrosities.”

“It is easier and cheaper in the short run for power plant developers to build a new plant right next to an old one,” Lewis conceded. “The land is already disturbed, and power lines and other supporting infrastructure are right there. The problem with this rationale is that it condemns thousands of acres of our state’s prime coastal land to a future of heavy industry.”

So there you are. Carlsbad is on record as being opposed on aesthetic (which quickly morph into moral, if not legal) grounds to NRG’s business plan.

Nevertheless, the energy company lowered its head and plowed forward. Ultimately, Carlsbad seemed to see the writing on the wall and adopted a fallback position that succumbed to the new plant so long as Encina’s demolition coincided with the construction of the low-profile Ferrari.

According to a company spokeswoman, NRG believed that Carlsbad promised it would stop badmouthing the new plant and partner with NRG to demolish Encina.

Last week, however, the “eventually” in Hoffman’s op-ed column reared its ugly ambiguous head.

In a statement to the governing power player, the California Energy Commission, NRG appeared to renege on the negotiated sequence of events, asserting that if a new plant is going to be built, NRG needs to be able to hold off on razing Encina “for the foreseeable future,” a wordy variant of the word “eventually,” which in practical terms can mean anything from tomorrow to the end of time.

Mayor Pro Tem Ann Kulchin’s reaction to NRG’s apparent switcheroo was a perfect reversal of Molly Bloom’s famously yielding, “Yes I said yes I will Yes.”

“No, no, no, no,” Kulchin told a U-T reporter.

If it’s one thing I’ve learned from covering North County for a quarter of a century, it’s this: Don’t mess with Carlsbad. It’s a willful city that’s used to getting its way, especially in the realm of redevelopment. In negotiations, it will hear what it wants to hear and then fight tooth and nail for its interests.

NRG is pushing back with the narrative that Carlsbad has reneged on its pledge to drop its opposition to the new 540-megawatt plant and partner with NRG in the Encina demolition, a costly project that might require some heavyweight, if not nuclear, explosives.

Personally, I’m going to miss the weathered gray landmark and its flickering light atop the smokestack. On various levels, Encina tells us where we are.

This was the vintage Chevy, powered by five 20-story boilers, that drove North County from rural to suburban neighborhoods.